Sekha wrote:This article suggests according to Chinese medicine, egg yolks have no impact on health:

Chicken egg yolks are considered “neutral” in terms of qi energy. In traditional Chinese medicine, the body’s energy or qi, needs to be balanced to ensure good health. Foods are usually qualified as hot or cold, and overindulgence in either hot or cold foods can unbalance the body’s energy. As a result, neutral dietary foods like chicken egg yolk are useful for their lesser impact on qi.http://www.happyacupuncture.com/chinese ... -egg-yolk/

Despite the egg industry’s best efforts to put a “healthy” spin (see also here) on egg consumption, eggs contain high levels of cholesterol (see here & here) and may contain carcinogenic retroviruses, toxic pollutants (such as PCB, arsenic, phthalates), and Salmonella (see here and here). Consuming just one egg per day can significantly shorten our lifespan and increase our risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and some types of cancer (such as pancreatic (here too) and breast). Eating a meatless, egg-less, plant-based diet may improve mood, lower the risk of cataracts, neurological diseases, food poisoning, heart disease, diabetes, and even help reverse rheumatoid arthritis. This may be due in part to the arachidonic acid and cholesterol in eggs and the relative lack of antioxidant phytonutrients (see here, here, here, & here).-- http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/eggs/

In 2008, the Harvard Physician’s Health Study, which followed about about 20,000 physicians for 20 years, found that those eating just a single egg a day or more had significantly higher total mortality risk, meaning eating just one egg a day was significantly associated with living, on average, a shorter life. Later that year, that same single serving of egg was significantly associated with death and hospitalization from heart failure.

In 2009, it was diabetes. We’d known how bad eggs were for people with diabetes (doubling their risk of death), but it wasn’t until “Egg Consumption and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Men and Women”—another Harvard study—that we learned how much eating eggs increases our risk of getting the dreaded disease in the first place. Compared to those eating less than an egg a week, men eating just one a day appear to raise their risk of developing type 2 diabetes 58%, and women, 77% more risk.

That’s all old news I’ve covered before (here and here). What’s the latest? Well, whereas the twin Harvard death and diabetes studies followed mostly middle-aged men and women in their early 50s, the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study, published this summer, found that the risk associated with eggs extends well into one’s seventies. And if eggs raise one’s risk of type 2 diabetes so much, what about gestational diabetes, the loss of blood sugar control affecting up to 1 in 10 pregnancies? It was apparently never researched until this year, when a new study found that women eating one egg a day or more doubled their odds. “In conclusion,” the researchers write, “high egg and cholesterol intakes before and during pregnancy are associated with increased risk of gestational diabetes mellitus.”

The most important study, though, was a landmark review published last fall. It is the subject of my video-of-the-day both today and tomorrow. On Friday I’ll continue the theme of science scrambled by the egg industry. Yesterday’s video-of-the-day concerned the dairy industry’s attempt to mislead the public about milk and mucus. S’not as bad as the egg industry trying to downplay the risks of cholesterol, though, with egg consumption now tied to diabetes, heart failure, and premature death.

And lets not forget about the intense suffering of chickens to produce eggs:

Something to contemplate while you are eating your breakfast.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Ben wrote:Something to contemplate while you are eating your breakfast.

I buy from a friend who raises chickens, not from a supermarket or other factory farm goods selling outfit.

Kevin,

I think that is ethically better for the chickens.However, there are significant health-related risks associated with egg consumption.It is one of the reasons why I no longer eat them.kind regards,

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

I buy from a friend who raises chickens, not from a supermarket or other factory farm goods selling outfit.

Kevin,

I think that is ethically better for the chickens.However, there are significant health-related risks associated with egg consumption.It is one of the reasons why I no longer eat them.kind regards,

Ben

Hi Ben,

Yes, those factory farms concern me at times. These chickens have a more normal existence.

As far as the other health concerns with eggs, I am not too worried about it personally. After all, we never know what will happen in life. Some will have the strong kamma that produces vipakka which allows them to live to 123 years old without ever reading an article on nutrition (like the guy in Bolivia), or if it is other kamma, you may wind up with a piece of food that contains some rare virus which kills you, even though it would otherwise be something healthy. So while I appreciate your advice (and read it with interest), I take everything with a grain of salt... no, wait a minute.. maybe not salt... oh, nevermind!

Thanks

P.S. It's amazing, sometimes we are more attached than others, sometimes we are not attached - all by conditions!Kevin

Someone who doesn't even understand (or is unwilling to acknowledge) that dietary cholesterol has virtually no effect on blood serum cholesterol, and who ignores the fact that if you buy organic eggs from free-range chickens none of these concerns are valid, hardly has credibility. The way this guy thinks makes me wonder if he's getting enough protein (and the phrase "purported 'myth'" is redundant).

RE:

And lets not forget about the intense suffering of chickens to produce eggs...

I buy from a friend who raises chickens, not from a supermarket or other factory farm goods selling outfit.

Kevin,

I think that is ethically better for the chickens.However, there are significant health-related risks associated with egg consumption.It is one of the reasons why I no longer eat them.kind regards,

Ben

Hi Ben,

Yes, those factory farms concern me at times. These chickens have a more normal existence.

As far as the other health concerns with eggs, I am not too worried about it personally. After all, we never know what will happen in life. Some will have the strong kamma that produces vipakka which allows them to live to 123 years old without ever reading an article on nutrition (like the guy in Bolivia), or if it is other kamma, you may wind up with a piece of food that contains some rare virus which kills you, even though it would otherwise be something healthy. So while I appreciate your advice (and read it with interest), I take everything with a grain of salt... no, wait a minute.. maybe not salt... oh, nevermind!

Thanks

P.S. It's amazing, sometimes we are more attached than others, sometimes we are not attached - all by conditions!Kevin

I agree with you Kevin, but I think we play a large part ourselves as active agents with respect to our happiness, health and longevity. Your 123 year-old Bolivian may not have read a single article about nutrition in his long life, but I would imagine that his dietary practices were pretty good.kind regards,

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Someone who doesn't even understand (or is unwilling to acknowledge) that dietary cholesterol has virtually no effect on blood serum cholesterol, and who ignores the fact that if you buy organic eggs from free-range chickens none of these concerns are valid, hardly has credibility. The way this guy thinks makes me wonder if he's getting enough protein (and the phrase "purported 'myth'" is redundant).

RE:

And lets not forget about the intense suffering of chickens to produce eggs...

This is not true with free-range, organic eggs.

Speaking of credibility - one should always follow the evidence and not cherry-pick evidence to suit their pet theories.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Speaking of credibility - one should always follow the evidence and not cherry-pick evidence to suit their pet theories.

See my last post. No cherry picking ocurred in "The cholesterol myth" topic. Have you ever taken a college course in nutrition science? I have. I speak from a broad perspective, not one "cherry picked," unlike citing one vegan doctor.

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

I don't eat much eggs, like 10-15 per year. But that's only by feeling, not because of knowledge.

Out of pure interest, I'd like to kow what the "significant health-related risks associated with egg consumption" may be. Can you help me?

Kind Regards,Mirco

"An important term for meditative absorption is samadhi. We often translate that as concentration, but that can suggest a certain stiffness. Perhaps unification is a better rendition, as samadhi means to bring together. Deep samadhi isn't at all stiff. It's a process of letting go of other things and coming to a unified experience." - Bhikkhu Anālayo

I don't eat much eggs, like 10-15 per year. But that's only by feeling, not because of knowledge.

Out of pure interest, I'd like to kow what the "significant health-related risks associated with egg consumption" may be. Can you help me?

Kind Regards,Mirco

Mirco,

See my posts above and associated links.kind regards,

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

People should stop behaving like headless chickens — worrying about every article on the dangers of different foods, and learn to trust their own experience.

I know, that if I eat a four egg omelette, it will make be feel heavy. However, if I eat one or two eggs, as part of a balanced diet, it has no discernible detrimental effect.

Someone who is working out regularly, could surely eat two eggs every day of the week and suffer no ill effects. There again, a Vegan could surely abstain from eating eggs completely and suffer no ill-effects.

Just follow the Buddha's advice. Be mindful, don't be greedy, meditate regularly to keep the mind free from aggression and craving for delicious tastes. Observe eight precepts on two or four days a month to deepen awareness and insight.

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:Someone who is working out regularly, could surely eat two eggs every day of the week and suffer no ill effects.

With respect, Bhante, the evidence suggests otherwise.There is no "worrying". However, I do believe as lay-people, we should be looking after our health so as to maximise our opportunity for practice and to support those who depend on us, and minimise the risk of becoming a burden on others as the result of chronic lifestyle-related diseases.kind regards,

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Ben wrote:And lets not forget about the intense suffering of chickens to produce eggs

well, this suffering is caused by the wrong choices of the farm industry, for which we are not responsible, since they can be avoided and it is possible to raise chicken without making them suffer. And also, hens lay eggs whether they are fertilized or not, which means eggs do not necessarily contain life, and there is no breach of the first precept by eating such eggs.

As pointed out by various proponents of non-vegetarianism, the agro-industry kills billions of insects to ensure the crops remain in good shape, so it is not possible to imagine one can consume food that has not been produced while making animals suffer bitterly in the process. All we can do is minimize that suffering as far as it is possible and reasonable.

mirco wrote:Out of pure interest, I'd like to kow what the "significant health-related risks associated with egg consumption" may be. Can you help me?

Ben wrote:See my posts above and associated links.

Interesting. For me it's hard trusting those modern science doctors.

"An important term for meditative absorption is samadhi. We often translate that as concentration, but that can suggest a certain stiffness. Perhaps unification is a better rendition, as samadhi means to bring together. Deep samadhi isn't at all stiff. It's a process of letting go of other things and coming to a unified experience." - Bhikkhu Anālayo

mirco wrote:Out of pure interest, I'd like to kow what the "significant health-related risks associated with egg consumption" may be. Can you help me?

Ben wrote:See my posts above and associated links.

Interesting. For me it's hard trusting those modern science doctors.

No need to follow anyone, Mirco. Just follow the evidence - or the money trail.kind regards,

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Clearly there is, or you would not be wasting your precious time reading these articles on the "dangers" of eating eggs, and promoting the dubious claims that they are making.

According to Dr Google the "evidence" is contrary to your opinion. You choose to ignore those articles that don't support your current view, and to believe the articles that do. The main problem is egos, not eggs.

Human beings have been eating eggs, fish, poultry, and meat for tens of thousands of years. There is no evidence that a moderate amount of any of these products causes serious health issues. Excess in almost anything can cause health problems. You can die from drinking too much water.